Lido Staked Ether ($stETH) is a token that represents your staked Ethereum (ETH) in Lido, combining the value of the initial deposit and staking rewards. $stETH tokens are minted upon deposit and burned when redeemed. $stETH token balances are pegged 1:1 to the ETHs that are staked by Lido and the token’s balances are updated daily to reflect earnings and rewards. $stETH tokens can be used as one would use ETH, allowing you to earn ETH 2.0 staking rewards whilst benefiting from e.g. yields across decentralized finance products. Lido Staked Ether ($stETH) is based on multiple networks, including Ethereum, Terra, Solana, Kusama, and Polygon.
The Lido is an Ethereum Liquid Staking Protocol, built on Ethereum 2.0's Beacon chain, allowing its users to earn staking rewards on the Beacon chain without locking Ether or maintaining staking infrastructure. Users can deposit Ether to the Lido smart contract and receive $stETH tokens in return. The smart contract then stakes tokens with the DAO-picked node operators.
The way Lido is architectured makes stETH a fantastic piece of DeFi-lego, letting you use it as you normally would use your Ethereum. The benefit? Your stETH balance increases daily as staking rewards come in.
The most popular way of utilizing stETH right now is by providing liquidity on the ETH/stETH-pool on Curve. You can also use stETH as collateral to take out a loan on ARCx. In the future, more integrations will come with further use cases for stETH.
For a full overview of what you can do with your stETH, check the following resources:
stETH can either be minted directly through the main-site or bought on exchanges.
Curve has the deepest liquidity and usually provides the best rates on the ETH/stETH-pair.
